Last year, while most state-wide average premium rates increased somewhat (averaging around 5.5% overall nationally, give or take), there were a few states which actually saw rate decreases from the year before: Arkansas, Mississippi and New Mexico saw overall decreases on their individual markets, while the District of Columbia and Hawaii saw decreases on their Small Business markets.
Beginning today, low-income uninsured Alaskans can apply for health coverage because of Governor Bill Walker’s decision to expand Medicaid as part of health reform. This makes Alaska the 29th state (plus the District of Columbia) to implement the expansion (see map).
Across the country, Medicaid expansion has produced state budget savings, and the historic gains in health coverage since health reform took effect have been greatest in expansion states. Now Alaska is poised to reap immediate and positive benefits of expansion: the state projects expansion will make 40,000 people eligible for coverage and could save the state budget up to $6 million this fiscal year, with greater savings in future years.
A couple of weeks ago, right after I left for vacation, both Marco Rubio and Scott Walker finally released "replacement plans" for the ACA. Rubio's was really just an op-ed sort of thing, but Walker's has received quite a bit of attention because it reminds people that he's still running for President and it actually bears some resemblance to an actual policy paper, which is more than anything else the GOP has come up with over the past 6 years.
I was planning on writing up my own analysis of each when I got back, but frankly, I'm too backlogged with other stuff (both ACA and day-job related...I need another vacation from my vacation now...). Plus, many, many others more knowledgable about these things than I have done fantastic writeups already:
Nearly 72 million individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP in June 2015. This enrollment count is point-in-time (on the last day of the month) and includes all enrollees in the Medicaid and CHIP programs who are receiving a comprehensive benefit package.
292,112 additional people were enrolled in June 2015 as compared to May 2015 in the 51 states that reported comparable May and April 2015 data.
Looking at the additional enrollment since October 2013 when the initial Marketplace open enrollment period began, among the 49 states reporting both May 2015 enrollment data and data from July-September of 2013, nearly 13.1 million additional individuals are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of June 2015, almost a 22.7 percent increase over the average monthly enrollment for July through September of 2013. (Connecticut and Maine are not included in this count.)
This is a huge story which I should have been following, but a) I was on vacation the past couple of weeks, b) I can't cover everything healthcare-related, and c) it's really not directly related to the Affordable Care Act. Fortunately, the Arkansas Times' David Ramsey has been all over it, so I'll let him lay it out for you:
...all three members of the household were among almost 36,000 Arkansans who were kicked off of their health coverage on July 31. Insurance for another 13,000 people across the state will terminate at the end of this month. The cancellations are the result of a statewide sweep of Medicaid performed by the Arkansas Department of Human Services in an attempt to weed out those beneficiaries whose incomes are too high.
Last week I estimated the overall weighted average rate increases for the Arkansas individual market at "between 4-5%", with a rough estimate of around 4.6%.
Today, Arkansas Times reporter David Ramsey has provided the exact market share numbers for Arkansas. When I plug these in, the weighted average comes in a bit higher, at 4.98%:
HOWEVER, according to Ramsey, the Arkansas Insurance Division says that the actual weighted average is only 4.4% overall.
There could be any number of reasons for the discrepancy; it's possible that there's a few additional minor off-exchange carriers who I've missed, or there could be rounding errors/etc. In any event, these are all just estimates anyway, so I'll go with AID's official 4.4% figure.
Nevada's insurance dept. rate filing website has an extremely user-friendly, interactive website which lets you drill down and find exactly what you're looking for: Individual or Small Group policies, HMO or PPO, Under Review or Reviewed. From what I can tell, there are 12 companies offering individual policies in 2016 (a 13th, the Nevada Health COOP, just announced that they've gone belly-up and are being dissolved, meaning a minimum of 16,000 Nevadans will have to switch to a different insurance carrier).
The requested rates were approved for 8 of the companies, but were reduced significantly for Aetna (from 21-24% down to 15%). Here's what it looks like in the end:
The Small Group market is faring somewhat better, with just a 5.3% overall weighted average increase:
The Washington Health Benefit Exchange and Healthplanfinder, the state’s marketplace and website where people can buy individual and subsidized health insurance under health reform, have gone through some big changes lately.
Most important to consumers, Healthplanfinder is no longer the portal through which customers pay their insurance premiums.
On Tuesday, the organization announced that starting Sept. 24, Qualified Health Plan and Qualified Dental Plan customers will be required to pay their monthly premiums directly to their insurance companies, and the site will no longer accept those payments after Sept. 23.
The change mirrors a stop-gap measure put in place last year after problems plagued the site’s payment mechanism.
